Sunday, November 29, 2009

There's no need to fear. DHS is here. And they are protecting us from kaiju. " What's kaiju?" you may ask. They are giant monsters popularized by Japanese film-makers like Toho Studios, who gave the world the most famous kaiju: Godzilla. Sure, Gamera can go tear-assing around Japan, but he'd better keep his flame-shooting butt out of the U.S. of A. Too bad these guys weren't around in 1978 when Godzooky single-handedly ruined The Godzilla Power Hour.

According to Reason magazine, the Department of Homeland Security seized the first printing of a strategy guide for Privateer Press's giant-monster collectible miniature game Monsterpocalypse. The result was that the interdiction postponed the game's release for an entire week.

What if a conservative talk show host like Rush Limbaugh were the last man on earth, and everyone else had been transformed into liberal nudist zombies? Find out in Hive Mind, the story of Doug Trench, right-wing radio talk show host, "stevedore of freedom," and the last man on earth. Aside from the zombies who are controlled by the Hive Mind collective.

With pencils by Dusty Abell, ink by Drew Geraci, and color by Dean White, this is one of my favorite comic covers of all time. Too bad, the comic never came into being. Geraci explains:

From: Hellboy (Unpublished) For a few years, Dusty Abell and I were a team and did about 300 pages together. Dusty approached Mike Mignola with this concept which started in a chinese monastary in the 30's (based on some book he read) and wrapped up in the 70's, a period Dusty and I would constantly wax nostalgic over. Colored by Dean White, who did a terrific job. From my hazy recollection, Mike was actually interested, but it got put on the back burner, until other new opportunities came in which demanded his time ( like a movie, perhaps?) A shame this project never saw the light of day, isn't it?

Friday, November 27, 2009

The 2010 twelve-inch Membership figure is the URBAN ADVENTURER. The figure will come dressed in a black tee shirt and black shorts. He comes with the vintage style foreign head and has blonde life-like hair and beard. Additional figures will be available for Club Members to purchase and a separate accessory set will also be made available for purchase by Club Members as well. The figure, combined with the accessory set, (ordered separately from the Club) will complete this exclusive figure and make him ready for action! No Adventure Team collection is complete without him!

Weekly World News NewsBack in the late eighties, when money was short, Friday night frequently consisted of a six-pack of Sterling, a bag of Gator Chips, and a copy of the Weekly World News. Within its pages, a reader could find Bigfoot, aliens, exorcisms, the common-sense advice of Dear Dotti, and the fiery political rants of Ed Anger, whose columns were so vitriolic that he made Sean Hannity look like Stuart Smalley. While other periodicals were focusing on such mundanities as stock quotes and sports stats, WWN was scooping its competition with such headlines as "Abraham Lincoln Was A Woman," "Dick Cheney Is A Robot," and "Satan Captured by GIs in Iraq."

Unfortunately, like most of her more reputable brethren, the Weekly World News suffered heavily when the banner of journalism was ripped from the hands of print-media by the internet finally stopping the presses for good in 2007.

Fans of Weekly World News can now rejoice. Fellow WWN enthusiast and IDW Publishing editor-in-chief Chris Ryall has penned a four-part miniseries with the assistant of artist Alan Robinson that unites WWN-fan faves Bat Boy, PhD Ape, UFO Alien, Manigator, and Lemmie the Lake Erie Monster as a tabloid super-team in their epic struggle to save Earth from the Chaos Cloud.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Why is this lady smiling? Because R. A. Salvatore has enough money? Nope. It's because Wizard$ of The Coa$t is bring the Underdark to Heroscape. Move over, Drake. Drizzt is coming. And he's bringing a whole Master Set of tiles, trolls, and black dragons with him.

On November 10, 2009, Wizards of The Coast issued the following press release:

LEGENDS OF THE DUNGEONS & DRAGONS UNIVERSE COME TO HEROSCAPE

Wizards of the Coast releases a new master set for the build-and-battle game system

RENTON, Wash—November 10, 2009—Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS) today announced the upcoming release of a new D&D Heroscape master set: Battle for the Underdark. The set, a first of its kind, will be released January 4, 2010.

Battle for the Underdark features iconic characters and monsters from the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons. Players will battle a troll, a band of drow (dark elves) and ultimately face the evil black dragon.

The new master set includes a rulebook, 10 figures, 50 configurable terrain pieces and customizable game scenarios, which bring new dimensions to the popular build-and-battle miniatures game. This set will follow the release of Small Expansion Set 10: Valkrill’s Gambit which comes out on November 17, 2009.

Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE:HAS), is the leader in entertaining the lifestyle gamer. The company holds an exclusive patent on trading card games (TCGs) and their method of play and produces the premier trading card game, Magic: The Gathering®, among many other trading card games and family card and board games. Wizards is also a leading publisher of roleplaying games, such as Dungeons & Dragons®, and publisher of fantasy series fiction with numerous New York Times best-sellers. For more information, visit the Wizards of the Coast Web site at www.wizards.com.

My perfect world would be hand written letters and payphones.Old records and old cars.Guys opening doors for girls and waiting for them to sit down before they sit down.Waiting for them to start eating before they eat.dudes wouldn't wear pants hanging off their ass and hats like big buckets with stickers still on them and dudes wouldn't wear Hercules sandals, eitherdudes would wear suits, always.always dressed up.ever see old photos of basbeall games back in the day?men had on suits, fedoras, cigars, ties and sparkling shoesthey weren't painting their chests with beer helmetsand eating nacho cheese dip off their gut like a table

More Matt HelmYesterday, I linked to Gary Hatcher's fine piece of squeeage over Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm novels at CBR. Today, I'll include two more Matt Helm links. The first is The Matt Helm Dossier. The second is the Online Archive of California's Donald Hamilton Papers. This site is a box-by-box listing of what's in the 155 boxes of the Donald Hamilton collection.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

A couple of items of interest for those who share my fascination with sixties spy-fi. First, some nice Robert McGinnis prints are available at RMG-Artwork. Unfortunately, they are currently limited to only James Bond stuff, but hopefully that will changes.

I ran across Wishbook Web this a.m. Among other treasures, they have the 1970 J. C. Penney Christmas catalog from which I am certain my mom ordered my very first G.I. Joe (he was the "G.I. Joe Soldier" on page 361). We were a J. C. Penney family. I had to go to my aunt's house if I wanted to see what a Sears catalog looked like.

In addition to Bicentennial costumes and the Guns of Navarone playset, the 1976 J. C. Penny catalog had an action figure called J. J. Armes. He was a private eye who had two prosthetic arms that had interchangeable hooks and hands. I'd forgotten about this rather creepy looking fellow until I ran across him.

Monday, November 16, 2009

This week's Bartholemew J. Simpson Memorial Delicious Ironing Web Award for the Advancement of Irony, Incongruity, and Cognitive Dissonance goes to xxxThePeachxxx in recognition of the following statement culled from her Youtube site.

I despise the sickness called faith, and, in my opinion, it is not worthy of respect or praise. I have very little patience for conspiracy theorists. I have no time for bigotry of any kind, nor threats of eternal torture for not choosing your particular desert cult.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

This was in my email when I woke up this morning. It is ganked verbatim from The Art of Manliness.When famed War Correspondent Col. Frederick Palmer called on Douglas MacArthur at his Manila Headquarters, his most vivid memory of the meeting was that of the three frames hanging over the General’s desk. On the left, a portrait of Washington. On the right, a portrait of Lincoln. And between them, a framed version of a poem called “Youth” by Samuel Ullman. He also hung it in his office in Tokyo when he took over as Supreme Allied commander of Japan, and would continue to quote it in the many speeches he gave his “old” age. Because of his influence in Japan, the poem became very popular among the Japanese, and it is still more well known and beloved there than in the West.

Youth

By Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

The Zoom Quilt II collaborative art project is a bit of Flash-work done by over thirty different artists. This animation takes the viewer deeper and deeper inside the painting to see surreal landscape that includes everything from tentacled horrors to cheese-eating mice. You can find it at http://zoomquilt2.madmindworx.com/zoomquilt2.swf.

Friday, November 13, 2009

"Every construct we've built in American life is falling apart. Why? Because of personal greed and ambition. Capitalism without regulation can't protect us against personal greed...."--Jim Carrey, The Guy Who Made $108,385,533 for Starring in Ace Ventura II, When Nature Calls

Once again I am justified in my belief that actors should be limited to a maximum of $500,000 per film. Considering the popularity of the Stimulus Bill's provision sal-capping of CEOs at 500 Grand per year, I believe limiting what an actor can make per film would definitely help keep "personal greed" and "ambition" in check.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Back when I was actively building a new D&D campaign world recently, one of the things I definitely wanted to include was knife-fighting monkeys. Today, Lord Robilar Himself posted some art by G. Barr that looks like a scene straight out of that which I envisioned for my murderous monkeys.